“You are black and you are gay,” he recalls being told by naysayers, “and unless you change that, you will not work.”

He went on to say, “When I was in school, I had a high speaking voice, and it was the ’80s, and unless you fit into a very black masculine mold there would be nothing for me to do . . . My voice was too high for the American stage.”

Today, “Success is the best revenge . . . With that there is nothing to say.”